National Merit Cutoff Predictions Class of 2017

If there aren’t any or many perfect scorers then would that put near perfect scorers in 100 percentile? How does it work?

@WorryHurry411 …I have seen a few 226’s on here. People saying that someone at their school has that score at least. I saw that 225 to 226 was going to be the top scores out of 228. Here is the thing…kids were studying for a test that NO ONE had ever taken. How do you tutor someone for something you know nothing about. They were doing exactly what all of us are doing right now. Guessing…guessing at what we think the cutt off will be.

@WorryHurry411, perfect scorers - around 550+ for the last 3 years, distributed in every state

The perfect score - Texas

I researched Cobb School District to find 2014 PSAT test taker data. Really can’t find it.

Here is a link to their “Accountability Test Data”: http://www.cobbk12.org/centraloffice/accountability/CompAcctData.aspx

It only shows PSAT testing for the most recent test.

Anyone have info on scores from 2014 for them?

Humor me. Slow day here. My little thought experiment.

Pretend that you are applying for a job. The company hires 16,000 people each year at the same time. For all intents and purposes, there is but one application - an employment exam. call it a civil service test, whatever. Of the 16,000 people who will be hired, the company decides to allocate a certain number of positions to every state by hiring a certain number of the top scorers in each state. They don’t care about your interpersonal skills, work history, ethnic background - just your score.

Now you applied for the job in October by taking the empoyment test. This year the company received a statistically signifiant increase in the number of total applications than in previous years. Call it 8% more applications. And yet the company is still only going to hire 16,000 people.

Due to increased competition for the same number of jobs, and maybe factor in some anecdotal evidence about the employment test being easier (leave that part alone if you want), wouldn’t you expect that it would be more difficult to be hired this year?

@exeover wrote: “What total hysteria. Everyone: if you got a 215, you will likely qualify in every State with the new scale.”

Nope.

Not necessarily. Elite colleges reduce their admission rates partially by bombarding students who don’t have a shot at admission with marketing materials, enticing them to apply. That doesn’t mean that getting admitted for a qualified candidate (whatever their definition of qualified is) is harder today than it was 10 years ago.

@mnpapa29 It depends. To get hired, you need to be in the top 16000. If the new 8% are equally as skilled as the people who applied before, then yes it will be more difficult to be in the top 16000. Some of the new people added might be better than you are. If, however, the new 8% are all incompetent, then no, it’s no more difficult than it was before.

Looking at a percentile chart, though, it might appear like it was harder. The denominator of the fraction has gone up. For example, if previously you had to be in the 99.0% percentile bracket to be hired, now you might have to be in the 99.1% bracket instead. But it wasn’t really harder.

@Speedy2019 with post #1044. this may help with GA NMSF?

2016:
http://internet.savannah.chatham.k12.ga.us/Lists/Announcements/Attachments/884/16%20GA%20Semifinalists-NatlMeritProgram.pdf

2015:
http://media.cmgdigital.com/shared/news/documents/2014/09/11/NatMeritGA.pdf

2014:
http://media.cmgdigital.com/shared/news/documents/2013/09/14/14_GA_Semifinalists-NatlMeritProgram.pdf

@SLparent There are 600 students, and only around 25 NMSFs per year; that’s not 25%. It’s good but there are many good public schools who turn out more NMSFs per year than Walton does.

The Cobb data points to an issue that was discussed a day or two ago - the state cutoffs, and what happens when you get to the allocated number of NMSF.

The new PSAT has compressed top scores, and clustered a lot of students at the high end. Not at the very top - we are not hearing a lot of reports of 228, 227, 226. However, Walton is a great example of what is happening, where the top 100 kids averaged 216.6. That school averaged 18 NMSF per year over the last 3 years. GA cutoff will likely cause them to have roughly the same number this year, so it will probably be 219 plus/minus 1. To average 216.6, there are lots of 216, 217, 218 in that sample. NMSF are going to be squeezed hard in the 217-221 zone.

I predict more kids will miss NMSF by one point than ever before.

Sorry, its only me who mentioned a 226, nobody else on any thread scored above that, only one says that he know of someone who might have a perfect score. So basically, 225 is the highest documented score so far. If CC doesn’t have any then low odds for general population. May be we don’t have many perfect scorers. I was reading somewhere that usually roughly 100 kids make perfect PSAT scores, more do it on SAT and a whole lot more on ACT. Is it that PSAT is graded harshly or something?

@DoyleB wrote: I predict more kids will miss NMSF by one point than ever before.

And for many of those, one missed reading question cost them 2 pts on the SI.

@DoyleB That tracks with what my son has heard from fellow IB students at his school. At least four clustered between 1430 and 1470. Two with SI of 216 (despite different scores) and two who had no idea what a SI was. And that is just in those who talked about their scores.

@LivinProof I agree

@WorryHurry411 I’ve been keeping mental track and have seen 3 posts by students here on CC who got 228s. I only recall the username of one of them. I’ve also seen one post by someone who knew of 2 228s at their school. And, the 228 mentioned by @itsgettingreal17 on page 70.

Last year, I think I saw 2 kids post on CC that they had 240s, but I wasn’t watching very closely.

@DoyleB with post #1051.May I widen the Cobb data just a little bit.

From my post #1049
2016: combine Walton and Wheeler, we have 30+NMSF
2015: combine Walton and Wheeler, we have 38+NMSF

Data from Cobb suggest for 2016 Walton top 100 students scored avg TS of 1458
Data from Cobb suggest for 2016 Wheeler top 100 students scored avg TS of 1378

Higher scores associate with lesser the number of students, yes? I would say in order to be 35+NMSF for those two schools in GA for the year 2017, the minimum cutoff for those two schools would be 1420 (TS), you can translate to SI.

**** Since Cobb data use TS so I use TS (SI causes many conflicts)
Please, ignore if am wrong (I see many flaws or factors I miss). But it is simpler and easier to guess for GA cut off

@DoyleB looks like your predictions will be vindicated. There seems to be massive clustering around 214-218 index or scores in the 1440-1480 range at least in these two school reports from GA. Not sure if we can yet extrapolate nationwide but the anecdotal reports suggest we can. Not sure how NMSC will deal with SFs from the low scoring states if this contraction does not extend down to their allocation levels. Guess that’s what everyone’s wondering now.

Also from historical view point (last 3 years), 8 states with higher cut off (CA, MA, TX …) never cross the lowest 99+%tile. Lowest 99+%tile was usually at 99.54.

The lowest 99+%tile for Oct 2015 PSAT is 1440 (TS). And I assume CB will not change number for lowest 99+%tile (CB in business for at least 50 years, it’s low chance for them to change their number).

Base on those facts, I would say the highest ever cut off for 8 states ---- 1440